Have faithfully prepared each other's way— When and wherever, in this changeful world, Power hath been given to please for higher ends Since the primeval doom. Such is the grace Be wanting that sometimes, where fancied ills Or into anger roused by venal words In recklessness flung out to overturn The judgment, and divert the general heart From mutual good-some strain of thine, my Book! Caught at propitious intervals, may win Listeners who not unwillingly admit Kindly emotion tending to console And reconcile; and both with young and old For benefits that still survive, by faith In progress, under laws divine, maintained. RYDAL MOUNT, March 26, 1842. 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 FLOATING ISLAND Published 1842 These lines are by the Author of the Address to the Wind, etc., published heretofore along with my Poems. Those to a Redbreast are by a deceased female Relative.-W. W. 1842. [My poor sister takes a pleasure in repeating these verses, which she composed not long before the beginning of her sad illness.-I. F.] One of the "Miscellaneous Poems."-Ed. HARMONIOUS Powers with Nature work Once did I see a slip of earth (By throbbing waves long undermined) Might see it, from the mossy shore On which the warbling birds their pastime take. Food, shelter, safety, there they find; A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room. And thus through many seasons' space 5 10 15 20 Perchance when you are wandering forth Upon some vacant sunny day, Without an object, hope, or fear, Thither your eyes may turn the Isle is passed away; Buried beneath the glittering Lake, Its place no longer to be found; D. W. 25 There is one of these floating islands in Loch Lomond in Argyll, another in Loch Dochart in Perthshire, and another in Loch Treig in Inverness. Their origin is probably due to a mass of peat being detached from the shore, and floated out into the lake. A mass of vegetable matter, however, has sometimes risen from the bottom of the water, and assumed for a time all the appearance of an island. This has been probably due to an accumulation of gas, within or under the detached portion, produced by the decay of vegetation in extremely hot weather. Southey, in an unpublished letter to Sir George Beaumont (10th July 1824), thus describes the Island at Derwentwater : "You will have seen by the papers that the Floating Island has made its appearance. It sank again last week, when some heavy rains had raised the lake four feet. By good fortune Professor Sedgewick happened to be in Keswick, and examined it in time. Where he probed it a thin layer of mud lies upon a bed of peat, which is six feet thick, and this rests upon a stratum of fine white clay, -the same I believe which Miss Barker found in Borrowdale when building her unlucky house. Where the gas is generated remains yet to be discovered, but when the peat is filled with this gas, it separates from the clay and becomes buoyant. There must have been a considerable convulsion when this took place, for a rent was made in the bottom of the lake, several feet in depth, and not less than fifty yards long, on each side of which the bottom rose and floated. It was a pretty sight to see the small fry exploring this new made strait and darting at the bubbles which rose as the Professor was probing the bank. The discharge of air was considerable here, when a pole was thrust down. But at some distance where the rent did not extend, the bottom had been heaved up in a slight convexity, sloping equally in an inclined plane all round: and there, when the pole was introduced, a rush like a jet followed, as it was withdrawn. The thing is the more curious, because as yet no example of it is known to have been observed in any other place." Another of these detached islands used to float about in Esthwaite Water, and was carried from side to side of the pool at the north end of the lake-the same pool which the swans, described in The Prelude, used to frequent. This island had a few bushes on it: but it became stranded some time ago. One of the old natives of Hawkeshead described the process of trying to float it off again, by tying ropes to the bushes on its surface, —an experiment which was unsuccessful. Compare the reference to the Floating or Buoyant "Island of Derwentwater, and to the "mossy islet" of Esthwaite, in Wordsworth's Guide through the District of the Lakes.—ED, 66 "THE CRESCENT-MOON, THE STAR OF One of the " LOVE" Published 1842 Evening Voluntaries."-ED. THE Crescent-moon, the Star of Love, Glories of evening, as ye there are seen With but a span of sky between Speak one of you, my doubts remove, Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen? "A POET!-HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL" Published 1842 [I was impelled to write this Sonnet by the disgusting frequency with which the word artistical, imported with other impertinences from the Germans, is employed by writers of the : present day for artistical let them substitute artificial, and the poetry written on this system, both at home and abroad, will be for the most part much better characterised.--I. F.] One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--Ed. A POET! He hath put his heart to school, Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold; And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree Comes not by casting in a formal mould, But from its own divine vitality. 5 IO "THE MOST ALLURING CLOUDS THAT Published 1842 [Hundreds of times have I seen, hanging about and above the vale of Rydal, clouds that might have given birth to this sonnet, which was thrown off on the impulse of the moment one evening when I was returning from the favourite walk of ours, along the Rotha, under Loughrigg.-I. F.] One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED. THE most alluring clouds that mount the sky * Compare A Poet's Epitaph (vol. ii. p. 75).—ED. |